Some time ago we brought you the story of the mountainside villagers in Atulie'er, China, who had been relying on rattan ladders to get to school and to trade supplies with the people living below.  After several fatal accidents and near-misses the authorities replaced the precarious homemade ladders with metal ones, fixed firmly into the mountainside, to make the perilous journey less dangerous.    Now, four years on from the installation of the new metal ladders, 84 households are moving down to ground level to a new community being built as part of Xi Jinping's plans to eliminate poverty, and the move has been welcomed by lots of the villagers.  Pregnant [...]

Donald Trump's presidency has been mired in controversy since before he was even elected, and the border wall is a big part of that controversial legacy.  A key feature of his campaign, (which later led to one of the longest furloughs in American political history, as he tried to hold Congress to ransom for the funding) the border wall has been the subject of intense scrutiny ever since.  Shortly after the design was announced there were videos appearing online of children scaling replicas of the construction, proving that the supposedly impenetrable wall wasn't as robust as Trump would have you believe.   There are continuing issues with land purchase for the [...]

If you're thinking about putting in a spiral staircase you've come to the right place.  We have a great selection of modern spiral staircases which can all be fitted by anyone with a good knowledge of DIY (or, if you prefer, a handyman or builder can install it for you).  There are a few questions you need to answer before you can select the right model for you, and these are all questions about the available space and height.   First, you need to know the exact height which the spiral staircase will traverse.  Start by measuring from the bottom floor (i.e. where the staircase will be grounded) and measure up, [...]

Ladders sometimes get a bad press, but when we look at the specifics of these news stories, it is almost always down to poor equipment choice or improper usage as a result of inadequate training that causes the accidents we hear about.  One Kent based roofing company was in the news recently after they were taken to court following an accident in which an employee suffered serious back injuries after falling from a ladder.  The man had been carrying a bucket of broken tiles down from the roof when he fell, and he could not maintain the standard three points of contact with the ladder, due to holding the bucket and [...]

Ladder safety is such an important aspect of using height access equipment that we're always shocked at the injuries some people sustain when falling off a ladder.  Usually, it's a broken bone or a bump to the head as people land on the ground, but rarely do we see a laceration caused by a ladder fall.  One unlucky painter from Essex gave us something to wince at after a fall from a ladder which cut open his arm, requiring a skin graft and multiple procedures to correct it.  Martin Burns had been up a ladder when it snapped, and during the fall ended up slicing into his arm, leaving a 20cm [...]

Here at Midland Ladders we are doing everything we can to provide our customers with the great service they are used to.  We are still processing orders and sending out stock when we can, but sadly as some of our manufacturers have temporarily closed their factories we can't always guarantee next working day delivery.  The good news is that we're still on the phones, so if you have any concerns please give us a call on 0300 303 22 99.   While we have had to cut back on the number of people on site our warehouse is large enough for social distancing measures to be observed properly and we're taking [...]

  We know that the fire service uses ladders frequently to rescue people from burning buildings, from frozen lakes and anywhere else that access is difficult.  Sometimes people are able to rescue themselves using a ladder, and two roofers in the state of New York did just that when their truck rolled off the road and into a creek where it began to sink.  The two men escaped the vehicle but could not reach safety, so thinking quickly they grabbed a ladder from their truck and used it to span the gap between the vehicle roof and the shoreline.  They were just in time, as the truck then sank to the [...]

From a young age our parents have warned us all to be careful around water, and if we were anywhere near a ladder we'd be warned to take care in those situations as well.  Both ladders and water can have fatal outcomes if not treated with caution and respect, but when handled properly one can be very effective in rescuing people from the other.   Two teenagers in Lowestoft were rescued using a ladder, among other things, when they got into trouble in the water.  The two boys had been riding their bikes along the seafront when one fell in and was injured, after hitting the concrete on the way down.  [...]

For much of the first half of 2020 the entire world was in some form of lockdown, an unprecedented event which was necessary to save lives and prevent the coronavirus from tearing through the population of the countries’ most badly affected.  It is a saga that is still playing out now, and may be a prominent feature of our lives for many months to come.  The humble ladder played its part in lockdown, in mostly positive ways.   There will always be people desperate to flout the rules and do their own thing, and for three people in Newport this meant using a stepladder to access a closed park at the [...]

Ladder safety is paramount for anyone using a ladder, but in the professional arena there is a legal requirement for employers, as well as sole traders who contract work out to other self-employed tradespeople, to ensure all their staff are correctly trained and adhering to health and safety protocol.  One such instance of poor health and safety was reported to the Health and Safety Executive by members of the public, who were concerned about the safety of two men working on a home in Altrincham.  One man was on a ladder that was placed across the ridge of a pitched roof, which was accessed by a ladder balanced between the ridge [...]